Santa Clara
Cal Poly Hosts Santa Clara for Final 2026 Home Midweek Matchup
4/27/2026 3:15:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Before embarking on a critical eight-game road trip, the Cal Poly baseball team plays its final midweek home game of the 2026 season Tuesday afternoon as Santa Clara pays a visit to Baggett Stadium.
First pitch is set for 4:05 p.m. and the non-conference contest will be video streamed on ESPN+ with Chris Sylvester providing the play-by-play. Links for the video stream and live stats are available on the Cal Poly baseball schedule page at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly, which travels to Santa Clara next Tuesday to complete the two-game midweek set with the Broncos, elevated its overall mark to 24-18 by sweeping CSUN over the weekend at home, posting 8-5, 5-4 and 5-2 victories. The Mustangs are first in the Big West standings with a 15-6 mark, one game ahead of UC San Diego (14-7) and two in front of UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton, both 13-8.
Santa Clara is 16-26 overall and 5-13 for ninth place in the 10-team West Coast Conference following its two-games-to-one series win against Portland, taking the first two contests 6-3 and 3-1 before falling in Sunday's finale to the Pilots, 3-1 in 10 innings.
After Tuesday's game, Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs hit the road the next two weekends for three-game Big West series at 2025 conference regular season champion UC Irvine and third-place Cal State Fullerton sandwiched around the return trip to Santa Clara. Cal Poly also visits Fresno State for the third and final meeting of the season with the Bulldogs on May 5.
Cal Poly, which hit .330 in the CSUN series, sports a .335 average in Big West games and .306 overall, producing double-digit hits in nine of its last 10 games. The Mustangs have notched 14 come-from-behind wins in 2026.
Sophomore shortstop Nate Castellon was 7-for-12 in the series with three RBIs while sophomore second baseman Jake Downing, fifth-year right fielder Dylan Kordic and fifth-year center fielder Casey Murray Jr. all recorded four hits in the three games.
For the season, junior third baseman Alejandro Garza leads the team with his .359 batting average, which includes 16 doubles, five home runs, 38 RBIs and 20 multiple-hit contests. He captured Big West Field Player of the Week honors last week by going 8-for-13 in the UC San Diego series with five doubles and six RBIs.
Garza has 232 hits in three seasons at Cal Poly and needs just 20 more to match Jimmy Allen’s program standard of 252, set from 2011 to 2014.
Next on the Mustang hitting charts is Castellon with a .343 average (14 doubles, three home runs, 17 RBIs), who has struck out just nine times over 197 plate appearances, fifth in the nation. Garza is ninth.
Murray is hitting .329 with nine doubles, four triples, four home runs and 18 RBIs while junior catcher Ryan Tayman sits at .325 with nine doubles and team-leading figures of 13 home runs and 43 RBIs. Freshman infielder Gavin Spiridonoff sports a .313 average with seven doubles and 14 RBIs.
Santa Clara, which has a .250 team batting average, is led by shortstop Ben Cleary at .338 (six doubles, 19 RBIs) and left fielder/designated hitter Max Ross at .307 (13 doubles, three home runs, 33 RBIs).
Lee said he plans to start on Tuesday freshman right-hander Sean McGrath (2-3, 7.11 ERA), a graduate of San Marin High School. McGrath has pitched in each of Cal Poly's last six midweek games, earning wins against San Jose State on April 7 and Pepperdine on April 14.
McGrath will be opposed by Bronco freshman right-hander Trevor Banning (1-0, 0.73), a graduate of Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Orange County who has pitched in 10 games, including one start, and earned his win against Loyola Marymount on March 29 with 1 1/3 scoreless innings. The only earned run he has given up over 12 1/3 innings this season was against San Diego on April 3.
The Mustangs are 5-2 so far in midweek games this season.
Santa Clara owns a 53-45 advantage in its series against Cal Poly, which began back in 1956. The Broncos have had Cal Poly's number in recent years, capturing 10 of the 13 contests played over the last eight seasons. Larry Lee is 22-25 against Santa Clara while Rusty Filter is 10-3 against Cal Poly.
Santa Clara has finished first in the West Coast Conference five times, the last in 2024 to end a 23-year drought. The Broncos are in their 144th year of competition in baseball, earning 2,436 wins with 13 NCAA regional appearances (the last in 2024 after a 27-year hiatus) and one trip to the College World Series (1962).
Rusty Filter (ninth season, 190-225, San Diego State '90) was pitching coach under Mark Marquess at Stanford for eight seasons before taking over for Dan O'Brien at Santa Clara in June 2017. He helped the Cardinal reach the NCAA Tournament five times, including three trips to the Super Regional, and developed 20 pitchers who were selected in the MLB Draft.
In 16 seasons as an assistant coach under Jim Dietz and Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn at his alma mater, Filter mentored 58 draft picks, including two top overall picks in the Major League draft, Stephen Strasburg in 2009 and Mark Appel in 2013. Filter played at San Diego State from 1987-90, originally as a catcher before moving to the mound, and was drafted by Toronto in 1990.
Lee is 737-570-2 in 23-plus seasons with the Mustangs and, combined with his 16 seasons at Cuesta College, is 1,197-811-5 overall as a head coach. He guided Cal Poly to the Big West tournament crown in 2025 with a 4-1 mark and his program's fourth trip to the NCAA postseason, going 2-2 in the NCAA Eugene Regional.
Cal Poly concludes the home schedule as well as the 2026 regular season May 14-16 with a three-game Big West series against Long Beach State.
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